NAME: Syed Shahzeb Saleem (01-111162-101)

CLASS: BBA 8-M

COURSE: Promotional and Advertising Mgmt.

SUBMITTED TO: Ma’am Izza

DATE: 22 March 2020

DOVE REAL BEAUTY SKETCHES CAMPAIGN

Case Synopsis:
The cases highlights Dove’s global campaign called “Campaign for Real Beauty” to challenge the
stereotypes set by the beauty industry over the years and to broaden the definition of beauty
and encourage discussion about its aspects. This campaign featured regular women (non-
models) who were beautiful in their own way and did not fit in with the idealized images of
models, super-models, and celebrities. The campaign was a huge success as it was appreciated
by many consumers and led to increased engagement towards the brand. It also generated
plenty of buzz and wide media coverage for the Dove brand.
This case gives you a brief history about the company, the brand and how the brand was
consistent in its efforts towards its customers to create an effective relationship between the
brand and the customers.
1. Company Analysis:
Dove, a subsidiary of Unilever, Dove has grown from its initial position of being a US
only soap into a global product. Today, Dove is among the leading brands in the
Personal Healthcare soap category. Although Dove initially focused on cleaning products
it has extended its brand to include bar, soap, facial cleansers, deodorants, and
shampoo-conditioners.
Dove operates in over one hundred countries where it provides unique products that
specifically meets the needs of the consumers in this locations. Dove products mainly
focus on the consumers’ attitude and self-esteem. The company provides products
offered to average looking women to make them look beautiful and more attractive.
This aspect of the product is focused on the potential customers’ attitude. Campaigns
are also conducted by Dove to encourage the customers’ self-esteem through using
Dove products.

2. Competitor Analysis:
Dove is a higher quality brand and costly than other products in them market. Dove’s
main competitors competing in the soap, shampoo, personal care products are Lux,
Olay, L’Oréal, Nivea, Neutrogena, Pantene, Sunsilk and Himalayas.
The personal care needs are increasing in the market and the personal care industries
are moving at a very fast pace to achieve their business goals and objectives. Dove is
making use of the expertise and considering the current trend in personal care, it tries
its best to meet the personal care needs of the people.
Competing in the foreign markets for its offerings, Dove follows a global strategy, also
called by a think-global and act-global strategy, the strategy using essentially the same
competitive strategy approach in all country markets where the company has a
presence, sells much the same products everywhere. A global strategy used by Dove is
preferable to localized strategies because Unilever can more unify its operations and
 focus on establishing a brand image and reputation that is uniform from country to
country.

3. History of Dove’s Real Beauty Campaign:

In the early 2000s, Dove executives began looking for a way to revive a brand that was
being overshadowed by other companies. Their PR agency, Edelman, conducted a study
of more than 3,000 women in 10 countries in order to learn about women’s priorities
and interests. When it reported that only 2 percent of the women interviewed
considered themselves beautiful, the executives at Dove saw an opportunity.
In 2004, Dove launched the Campaign for Real Beauty, which was meant to broaden the
narrow view of beauty within society. Before the release of the Campaign for Real
Beauty, Dove attempted to highlight the creamy, moisturizing feel that defined the soap
brand by emphasizing the beauty in pampering oneself – often times depicting a
beautiful, thin woman, with red lipstick and painted nails. Taking a drastic risk in their
marketing strategy, Dove sought to promote a new idea of beauty; they did so by using
real women whose looks and weight were far different from the typical model—and it
was a smashing success.
 One of the key creators and marketing geniuses behind the Campaign for Real
Beauty was Joah Santos. The Chief Creative Officer paved the way for the creative
advertising techniques that were used in a multitude of famous ads. Santos became
widely known after his making of the P.O.V. (purpose, originality, value) marketing
strategy, which was first used to create the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty. Within this
strategy, he hoped to simplify marketing by giving value to the content of an ad.

4. Dove’s Real Beauty Sketches Campaign:

The beauty of women has always been a touchy subject. In our modern day society,
pressure from advertisements and the media have contorted the way in which people
judge beauty. Dove created a beauty marketing campaign in 2013 to empower women
about their appearance, the campaign, titled Dove Real Beauty Sketches, is essentially a
short film featuring a forensic artist sketching women based off the descriptions they
give themselves. The portraits are then compared to sketches based off descriptions
from another woman about the original woman the artist drew. The portraits are then
placed side-by-side, building up to the key message the campaign aimed to convey: that
women describe themselves to be less beautiful compared to how others may describe
them; that women are more beautiful than they think.

In the broader social context, this campaign was inspired by market research that stated
only 4% of women globally consider themselves as beautiful. Thus, the company set out
to target the remaining majority 96% of women to convince them to think otherwise.
The social marketing campaign is interesting in that its sole purpose was to empower
women, not push for any particular Dove product. Dove released its film on its YouTube
channels, making it easily accessible in 110 different countries in 25 different languages.

Objectives of the campaign:

The objectives of this Real Beauty sketches campaign were to reinvent a female focused
marketing activity. To prove that women are their own harshest and biggest critics.
The agenda of this campaign was to show women that they are actually prettier than
they think and how one should ignore flaws and promote natural beauty.

Strategies used by Dove:

Dove throughout the campaign advertised a very clear band mission in its marketing
activities. Dove first understood and analyzed the market, its customers to develop a
better understanding of the mentalities and perceptions of different people.

Tactics used by Dove:

Dove used variety of women of different ages and ethnicities to focus on an emotional
appeal. They created a sense of harmony amongst women to appreciate each other,
support each other and to promote self confidence amongst them.

Response and Reactions on the campaign:

The video hit over a 114 Million views after the first month, The Internet became an
efficient platform to reach out to a global audience and make sharing the video easy.
This sharing not only helped broaden the net for Dove, but facilitated in connecting
individuals together and uniting them for a common cause. The ads stimulated social
conversation and sensitivity surrounding the definition of a beautiful woman.

The ads also left room for interpellation. What the Real Beauty Sketches campaign
posed for Dove was the opportunity to associate its brand name with a very positive
social motive. Consumers felt as though Dove cares about each of them, especially
because the catchphrase states: “You are more beautiful than you think.” This increased
the power of the message due to its rhetorical use of the second-person term “you,”
making the campaign personable and direct. As a result, consumers felt as though they
are doing the world goodwill when purchasing Dove products because it represents
their support for Dove’s social philosophy. What Dove achieved was an intangible
association between its brand name and empowerment.

The ads themselves are gender-specific, the sympathy evoked from them is not. A main
reason the video gained so many viewers is due to its strong emotional appeals and
response. The video was able to develop feelings such as warmth, happiness and
confidence in viewers. There is a sense of inclusiveness from the ads because of how
relatable the women are. Overall, the campaign was a well thought out method to
empower women to be more confident. It associated the brand Dove with lasting
feelings of pride and assurance in a very indirect way.

The campaign faced little criticism too due to their other brand Axe’s sexist marketing
activities and commercials. People thought it as a very hypocritical campaign and didn’t
feel that beauty of a woman should be associated to their happiness but this did build
trust with its customers and making women believe in the brand. Dove effectively
capitalized on emotional benefits.

Outcomes of the campaign:

Sales were never the objective of the campaign but the sales increased to 6% resulting
in building long term relationships with the customers and creating a very strong brand
awareness that could forever change the people’s perceptions about your brand!
Despite the negative comments, this campaign has experienced a very positive
feedback, response and appreciation from all around the globe even making it win the
Advertising Award, at the Cannes Film Festival held in France.
5. What should Dove do next?
Three different techniques were being considered by Dove on how to make the
advertising more effective:
A) The Selfie Documentary
In this activity, mothers and daughters were encouraged to take their pictures (Self-
shot) without effects, filters or adding any artificial effects. Your submissions were then
uploaded and people would leave positive remarks and notes of appreciation.
The response was to then be recorded through a video and shared around globally to
create a sense of emotional attachment to each other and ignoring the little things we
have in us.

B) The Mirror Campaign

The second idea was to set up a mirror in the busy centers with “Dove Knows you’re
Beautiful” written on it. People were to take pictures in front of the mirror and post
them using #dovetruebeauty.
This activity had a different and a unique approach on how to interact with the people.

C) Overhaul Dove Strategy

The third option was to overhaul and take apart the marketing strategy here and
decrease tension in their brand. This strategy was a remedy for all the negative backlash
and the criticism. This meant basically abandoning your efforts, activities etc.

Now, Dove should have implemented the first two options, the Selfie Documentary and
the Mirror Campaign which they did too in the future. Dove has set a standard through
this Real Beauty campaign now to which the market expects Dove to deliver great value
creating marketing activities and expects Dove to engage them in their future
campaigns. Dove should not at all apply the Overhaul Strategy as the criticism they
faced was very low and the response was very positive from the people. You can ignore
the 1% bad by thinking about the 99% good so Dove should have focused on extending
their history of great marketing activities and ignore the negative backlash. Dove did
implement this Mirror Campaign that promoted a feeling of confidence in people
knowing they look beautiful, attractive and worthy!